Please Enjoy Your Stay

By Tara Goedjen
** Publication Date 13 October 2026 **
4 stars
​

Austria seems like a great setting for a murder mystery. Especially when it takes place in a former castle. 


Amelia was just a young girl when her mother passed away from cancer. She was sent to live with her Aunt Iris and her cousin Tristan. Iris was a well-known true crime writer, Tristan, just a teenager himself. Tristan became Amelia’s keeper and best friend. 


They’ve traveled to a small town in Austria, the site of unsolved murders from the late 1960s. At the time that the DeLaney family visits the castle, now a hotel, it is somewhat run-down. It is being run by Augustin Aiglar, the son of the late Gitta Aiglar, victim of the murders. The castle feels haunted and dark. Iris is there to write, Amelia and Tristan are going to spend their summer learning German and hanging out with the landscaper’s children, Matteo and Sabine. Tristan is taken with Sabine, and Amelia with Matteo, even though she’s only 13. 


One night during a fundraising gala at the hotel, Tristan limps out of the castle to go down to the hot springs. He’s on crutches from an injury sustained on his skateboard. Amelia chases after him, but doesn’t reach the springs until Tristan is already lowering himself into the water. Augustin appears and starts an altercation with Tristan, and next thing Amelia knows, Tristan is floating face down in the springs. 


Now Amelia is grown and has changed her name to protect her privacy. She’s now Mia. Working as an EMT in Florida, she worries about her Aunt Iris who has retired in Vienna. When Mia finds a job opening working for the women who is going to reopen the hotel in Austria, Mia thinks this is the perfect thing to get her Aunt Iris out of the slump she’s been in. Mia wants to find out the truth about Tristan’s murder. 


Mia is accepted for the job as a nanny and finds herself on a flight to Austria to the place where her life went sideways. 


This book had me turning pages like crazy, wanting to figure out the person responsible for the murders at the castle/hotel. Mia is written as someone who avoids confrontation, yet she turns out to be the perfect heroine to the story. All of the characters seem suspect in one way or another, as most have worked for the hotel for a very long time. It’s a good novel when you might have a suspicion about the actual killer, but you can’t quite pin it down. Fortunately for us, neither can Mia. 


This is a wild ride from the prologue to the end. Very current with true crime podcasts and media all around. It’s a good one that I definitely will recommend.